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YALE UNIVERSITY 

PRIZE POEM 

1918 

THE TEMPERING: 
LEAVES FROM A NOTEBOOK 

By Howard Swazey Buck 



YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
1918 



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PREFATORY NOTE 

This poem received the twentieth award of the prize 
offered by Professor Albert Stanburrough Cook of Yale 
University for the best unpublished verse, the Committee 
of Award consisting of Professors Wilbur L. Cross, of 
Yale University, Frederick Tupper, of the University of 
Vermont, and Charles H. Whitman, of Rutgers College. 



A Call at Night 

Far into dreamless sleep a near voice creeping: 

'To Poste C. Glas — the road to Avocourt.' 

Ah, weary, now, be sure, 

To lift tired body, stiff and drenched with sleeping, 

And then steal forth as to a lover's tryst, 

Down the dim streets where o'erthrown walls sit weeping, 

A ruined city, in the moonlit mist. 

Then out through fields, and the cool stars are o'er; 

But here the mist hangs like the earth's white breath, 

Muffling afar those droning guns of death, 

The sleepless murmur of a tortured shore. 

Over those ghostly fields a mile or more. 
Then silently the forest's prison-door 
Closes behind us, blotting the last gleam 
Of light to guide us. Now all noises seem 
Magnified greatly ; the road under us 
Shifts sickeningly, a passage perilous 

5 



In gloom alive with voices; vague, near calls; 

Sound as of falling torrent that ne'er falls. 

A skidding truck sinks helpless in the mire. 

A whining shriek — cries of 'Take care, take care !' 

The white mists leap to sudden seething fire; 

The trees stand black and gaunt. A shuddering shock 

Wrenches the old earth's ribbed, unbending rock, 

Yea, seems to snap her backward, broken sheer, 

Screaming and helpless in the darkness there. 

Still whispering steel tries the wide atmosphere, 

And strikes in the soft mud around us here. 

Then stillness falls. 

We hear the stray leaves flutter 
Softly around us, whispers that would utter 
We know not what — waiting. The forest drips. 
Now for some moments no word parts our lips. 
Then, 'Well, I guess that's all for now.' And stiff, 
Especially in the knees, we stand straight-backed, 
Survey the helpless camion, wondering if 
Another truck can do the rescue-act. 
'We'd like to help, of course.' — 'Oh, no, no, no! 
Why, it is nothing — every night it's so — 
One anyway gets stuck. We'll be all right. . . . 
Been a long time in France ? . . . Ah. ... Well, good night.' 
'Good night.' 

6 



The forest's gloom is left once more. 
Up a long slope we softly move. O'erhead 
The bright stars shine as if there were no war, 
And at that moment no one wept her dead. 
Out past a ruined farm left desolate 
Amidst its riven orchard, blackened, gaunt. 
The muffled guns seem like a boaster's taunt, 
There in the sea of mists that stagnant wait, 
Shrouding the valley — some vast, blind, lost shore, 
Wrapped in its lonely, unremitting roar. 

A voice in sleep, insistent, low, obscure : 
'To Poste C. Glas — the road to Avocourt.' 

Le Mort 

Here on this stretcher now he coldly lies, 
A burlap sack hiding his beaten head. 
The idle hands seem heedless lumps of lead, 

And the stiff fingers of abnormal size. 

I almost stooped to brush away the flies, 
Musing if yet she knew that he was dead. 

Gayly laughing they brought him 

Up the dusty road, 
Chatting as if they thought him 

But a luckless load, 



And laid him here beside this scarred old tree, 
Till some death-wain should chance by luckily: 
Those wagons carry back the honored dead. 

But, necessarily, 
On the return trip they will carry bread. 

All day he lay there, and all night, 

Wrapped in the shining mists that swim 

Along the ground. The sullen might 

Of thunder shaking the earth shook not him. 

And, strangely lightening through the mist that crept, 
Moving like some slow, luminous, foaming sea, 
Washing black shores of twisted tarn and tree, 
The flaring star-shells here 
Over his lonely bier, 

White meteor-tapers, his pale vigil kept. 



Night-Work 



Along that lane of soft, uncertain light, 
Beacon of dust in a blank sea of night, 
Leaning far forward, ears, eyes, hand intent 
For sound or sight out of that blackness sent. 
Only slow-thudding thunder on our heels; 
Dull spasm of guns that less one hears than feels, 



Shocking the air with long insucking breath — 

Till the strange silence after falls like death. 

Now the held shriek of 'doucement, doucement,' groan 

Of some soft, bleeding, ticketed being, prone 

On the slung stretchers swaying hideously, 

Till night is kind, that eyes may never see. 

Suddenly vague, uncertain noises start 

Out of the blackness, stopping the schooled heart: 

Stamping patter of endless coming teams, 

Voices, a curse, grit of a wheel that seems 

Scraping our very hub-cap, shrinking by; 

Guns, carriages, munitions, trucks of supply, 

Upthundering, sweeping — vulturous wings that swoop 

Darkly out of a dream, shadows that stoop 

From some grim, vaguely dark, discolored sky. 

Lo, like a dream they now have hurried by. 

Look back: once for a moment are they seen 

Topping the ridge; a star-shell's whitish green 

Uplifts, soars, wavers, falls — and all is gone. 

The soft penumbra of the road shifts on 

Beneath us; once more on the tingling brain 

The motor's throb sinks like an old refrain. 

One of the swaying wounded moans in pain. 



Impromptu 



Back with our Division from the front — 

Of course the inevitable affront 

That had to come. Rest's welcome enough — and yet, 

Nothing to do now but just sit and sweat — 

No use to any one by any chance 

In a nasty little hole of northern France. 

So we must think of friends and others dear, 

Read their damned letters worshiping us here, 

As if we'd done something to make us boast. 

And now en repos! Caesar's well-known ghost ! 

Winifred, don't you wish that I were back? 
God knows / do. Just had a bad attack, 
Worse even than usual, as I lay alone 
In the warm field here, let the sun soak through 
Limbs all relaxed — just thinking — oh, of you — 
And everything. . . . The wind came down, 
Laughing, winning, sweeping me free: 

10 



Once more the mind's exultant certainty; 

Again I seemed to see 

The river sparkling there by Bucksport town, 

The rotting wharves, the soggy dory-slips, 

The lazy, idle fitting-out of ships — 

Haunts that I knew — 

And you. 

Alas, the chocolate peppermints I bought up street, 

And brought down there to eat — 

Perched each upon the favorite rotten pile, 

So dangling down our feet — 

Nay, do not smile! 

Hearing the fearful flowing of the tides 

Round our old haunted hulk's ingulping sides; 

Till twilight came, 

Hushing the river and the murmuring mill, 

Suddenly shading black the opposite hill, 

While the slant rays with a warm, quiet flame 

Over the drowsing village lingered still. 

Supper at your house, and the things you made! 

The plans for trips ! To-morrow it would be 

Down to Castine, 

Along the Docian shore so barren, lean, 

Till, bursting from the shimmering white birch-glade, 

Lo, the blue firs above the blue, blue sea, 

Toppling from rocks whose feet 



What snowy breakers beat ! 

And the salt air 

Douses our dust-choked lungs with wine, 

Draws its cool, tugging fingers through our hair — 

Song of the sea and sun, road and a ride divine ! 

You'll sit in front ? Good ! good to be alive 

To-morrow, you beside me, as we drive ! 

Oh, I'll be there for you at half-past nine; 

I'll see the others of the crowd ; we'll meet — 

Say, at the foot of Franklin street; 

And don't forget the deviled eggs, my dear! 

Good night, sleep tight . . . 

And I am here. 
O Lord, when working it's not half so bad ; 
But this — this makes me selfish — and — damned mad. 



Inaction 

No word to-day. 

How the days lag like very weeks away, 

Listless and careless if they move or stay! 

Ah, now to me this envious afternoon, 

Blinding the earth with smiles; 

The village-square, the fountain's falling tune; 

White dazzling walls, red roofs' eternal tiles, 



And over them green, wavering tree-tops, cool 
As the slow-loitering, shadowy pool 
Beneath the bridge where children hang by hours, 
Dreaming of green-eyed dragons, dungeon-towers; 
Ah, these to me are wasted treasures all. 
Only I hear insistent voices call, 
Questions, and never answers; and no word 
From you. Surely to-day I should have heard. 

Oh, I know well — and true, too, more or less — 
What you would say to soothe this restlessness : 
'We serve, though waiting.' 

And the labor's there ;- 
And others in the intolerable glare 
Die, horribly die, for things that we hold dear ! 
O faces drawing ever near, more near, 
Till it is sometimes difficult to bear 
The love of your dear lips, the questioning eyes, 
And frame the perfect, passionless replies — 
It is your lineaments I trace 
In every stricken face; 
Your breaking voice that cries 
Over the wretched things that were so bright. 
When, when will darkness rise? 
When comes the light? 

13 



Surely, if ever, these the dawning hours ! 

There is a stir throughout the land ; 

The legions of Verdun advance 

Once more for truth and France; 

The splintered woods of Avocourt are ours, 

Gray ghosts of forests gone; 

And, where the Julian Alps like giants stand, 

Italy still pours on, 

The day of Austrian overlordship done! 

And many a younger son 

From over sea — 

But a pale promise of what things may be — 

Adds to the faith of stricken earth's salvation 

Not the mere coming of an untried nation, 

Not the despair of hollow Germany, 

But the clear clarion of a liberty 

Mightier to overthrow no tottering Czar 

Than all the arrays of men and millions are ! 

Ah, if this were indeed the end, the end ! 

Bitter it is to pause here patiently, 

Hoping and fearing; the long hours to spend 

Brooding on thoughts of home, each word 

That lately you have heard ; 

Counting the days till you can hope again 

To hear from Maine. 

14 



The Watch-Tower of the Oise 

I could not sleep. 

Slowly and sullenly afar 

The muffled thudding guns that never sleep 

Pound out their insane litany of war. 

The morning mists are deep, 

And the wet bushes splash through, cool to the skin ; 

The stinging nettles creep 

Like fire upon ice, as by I leap 

Impatient with strange doubts within, 

Eager to gain the lonely tower, 

And watch alone, like some wild druid seer, 

The quiet, trembling hour 

When dawn is near. 

The woods are left, the fields break wide. 

Ah, truly, what a prospect here 

From this gray tower-top, here on the mountain-side! 

Slowly the subtle distances 

Resolve themselves in misty slope on slope, 

15 



Where the white coiling rivers float and grope 

On soft, uncertain shores. Now a dim breeze 

Wraps the old walls in shivering melody ; 

Cool, cool on cheeks, and lips, and eyes, and hair. 

Stark to the right, a line of staggering trees 

Stand gauntly there, 

Like ancient sentinels stricken hideously, 

Their ghosts, a fearful legion, 

Haunting the lean fields of this outland region. 

Somewhere beneath the bosom of this hill 

The little village sleeps, 

While the white fog slow creeps: 

Mothers and wives, old men — not, not their sons. 

Hark, in the dawn so still: 

Again the distant guns. 

A streak of rose 

Like the sweet shimmering verge of waking; 

Some dewy petal shaking . . . 

The shimmering radiance grows; 

Yes, it is day. 

Like a thin, shadowy spire the Eiffel Tower shows, 

Scarce forty miles away. 

Here from this Tower of the Oise to-day 

I can see Paris. 



They, 
Ere the dread Marne, nearer than this, 
Saw and believed; ah, nearer far, 
And sweeping forward o'er their weaker foes, 
Till like a landmark lost this tower rose, 
Splendid and beckoning them! Brave, brave the bliss 
Then to have been a German born 
And looked, as on this morn, 

Where Paris smiled and smiles! Most valiant youths, 
Mayhap they never showed 5 r ou books of truths, 
But told you lies, and led you blindly by, 
Thus wretchedly to die ; 
Gave you the law that was not for one man 
Nor nation, but a hideous thing, whose span 
Of life must needs be nearly done; 
Put in your hand 
Some iron-cold command, 
And in your heart no dimly answering law ; 
Made you no more the husband, father, son, 
But bade you obey, obey, whate'er the spirit saw. 
O blind obedience, blind, purblind, 
Till surely now you find 
What fatal thing is this that you have done! 
But is it well 

To call these children sons of hell? 
Surely you know even now the prisoner sees, 

17 



When cheating dreams have set him sadly free, 
Dear and loved faces — screwed up hatefully? 
There stood a lad last night outside the gate, 
Prussian — yea, even one of these! — 
Delivered up from chaos, one 

Snatched from the hand of death, death at Verdun; 
Dazed, stunned, and left disconsolate 
'Neath the too awful weight 
Of waking to the tryst his country kept — 
Better have swiftly fallen, sweetly slept. 
And, till the fields grew dim, 
I stood and talked with him. 
His low voice seemed more mournful deep to me 
Than the dim murmuring sea 
Instealing over shoals in silken swell. 
Once only an unspeakable 
And breaking agony 

Submissive sadness could no more compel, 
Broke forth in anguish: 'Thank God, God, 
That brother is too young, too young, too young!' 
Oh, that that word were flung 
.With blind and burning tears afar! 
Sadder than France's woes so truly sung, 
Germany's adoration in this war, 
The seed of discord's deeds 
Now spread o'er earth like flaming wild-fire weeds ! 

18 



No king nor country, nor ideal state 

Can ever consecrate 

This torn and trampled, flesh-bespattered sod ! 

Only for one thing can this stricken age 

Its bestial battle wage — 

That never upon earth again 

Shall fall this stain; 

Else are the lives and shames, the splendid givings vain. 

Shall it not be 

As in this hour, quiet, calm, and free? 

The dawn, it is the dawn; 

The crimson poppies blow 

In shimmering fields below. 

Oh, upon earth there shall be no such woe, 

When muffling mists are gone, 

I know, I know! 

The wind shouts paeans through the trees' strong limbs, 

Trembling so stately in the morning's glow; 

And in my heart are unheard, stirring hymns. 

Let the great guns roar out, 

The hideous pageant roll, 

That at the last the nations, saved, may shout, 

For ever, ever ends this nightmare of the soul ! 



September 7 



Running, running, staggering, torture-sped, 
Bringer of fearful tidings came. 
His face was like a horror-laughing flame, 
His knees were crimson with undarkened red 
From comrades dying, or already dead. 
Gasping he gave his message, and we fled 
Down the lean, barren, shell-combed road, 
His face before us as a living goad. 

There by the ditch we found them, as he said. 

Blindly the heedless thunders broke 

With yelling laughter up the summer sky ; 

And rocks and trees were idly tossed on high. 

We lifted them, the broken, moaning men, 

And those that never spoke, 

And staggered back that glaring way again. 

A bleeding brother ever, ever nigh, 
Days, days and nights. The curious gold ring; 
His hand's strange warmth: until the day I die 
I know I shall remember everything. 

20 



Robert Hall, killed September 1 2 

I know there is no word at all 
To say about you now, Bob Hall. 
We found the partly written letter, 
And mailed it to your mother — better 
It had not been. 'T is queer to see 
You resting here so peacefully, 
'Mid alien crosses. Row on row 
Over the gentle slope they go. . . . 
And you alone . . . that is not so. 
We knew Death could not always miss 
Our lips in his blind, wandering kiss; 
And you he touched. Yet not the less 
Was it the lightning's suddenness. 



21 



Verdun by Moonlight 

Past the gray citadel to the dead city, 

Dead in the moonlight, and its bones were white, 

A skeleton so old it asked no pity; 

White walls outfacing the slow-dreaming skies, 

And in their pallid faces endless eyes, 

And gaping mouths that shouted as we passed 

Down lonely ringing streets that Autumn night. 

The stores stood there; the silent theatre; 
The banks, the dark hotels; occasionally 
The gutted wrecks of what once used to be 
Office or dwelling — all one moonlit blur 
Of dreaming death, silent and vacant, vast 
In hush of waiting. Some dread pestilence 
Seemed to have swept the unknown people hence, 
Leaving their city like a curious shell 
Of blanching hues and corridors carven well, 
Broken a little by the blundering sea. 
22 



At Brocourt Hospital 

I had been writing letters late that night, 
How I had seen Verdun, the city dead. 
A blanket o'er the doorway masked our light 
From aeroplanes low droning overhead — 
Moonlight marauders from our friends across. 
Something strong gave the blanket-mask a toss, 
Flinging it in and up. The opening filled 
With bright and solid gold; and all things came 
Dancing and hiding in the leaping flame. 
And then faintly it seemed the shrapnel shrilled, 
Like elfin horns, slitting the dull wood through; 
And on the roof the rocks beat a tattoo. 
Then all was deaf and still. The air was blue; 
And from the wreckage people crawled away; 
And clearly in the moonlight others lay, 
Quietly sleeping, heeding not the affray. 



23 



After France 

All day the dizzy billows rolled 

Against our lurching side; 
And the wind sang till the brain rang 

With a wild song and wide. 

It took the rigging for its harp, 
And an old plaint outflung. 

My eyes were wet with the tugging wind- 
Had ever I been young? 

It was not possible, not possible, 

We soon should see again 
The faces and the forms beloved, 

The woods and fields of Maine! 

Yet I have seen ; heard the still trees 

Retell tales often told ; 
Cut cords of wood, and laughed at home 

More gayly than of old. 



Mother and father, sister — oh, 

Sweet as relief of pain ! 
And the magic days in the Autumn-tide 

When we knew the roads of Maine ! 

But now, it seems I was not there. 

Those common weeks to me 
Again are brave and strange and fair 

As olden chivalry. 



Troops to Sea 



Only when you are sleeping, 
And alone the great ships lie, 

Breathing like fabled monsters 
Their slow breath to the sky, 

And the world has waned to a shadow, 

We clear and put to sea. 
Soft in the darkness we pass you, 

Lady of Liberty. 

The loose ice gently crashes' 

Meeting our moving prow. 
Never, of course, you know it, 

But we are leaving now. 

25 



And we must press in the darkness 
To the rails, a whispering throng, 

Each in the darkness seeing 
Clearly whose love is strong. 

You will look out in the morning, 
And simply we shall not be. 

Soft in the darkness we passed you, 
Lady of Liberty. 



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